A Peek at the Earliest Stars

Summary: At the beginning of our universe, stars were not made of the same elements that they are today. Everything in the early universe was composed of completely hydrogen and helium. It is the very first stars that created the heavier elements like carbon, oxygen, and iron. The supernovae from these stars are what spread these elements throughout the rest of our universe. But what about these first stars that were formed before these heavy elements were common? Scientists have just maybe found some hints of these that confirm this theory. A team of astronomers has found one of these low-metallicity stars.

Using spectroscopy to look at the elements in the star with the Japanese Subaru telescope, the scientists noticed that some colors, visual representations of elements, were missing. It had very low levels of heavy metals.

With the available telescopes on earth, we cannot get much more than the barest hints of these early stars. We wait, instead, for the future and the James Webb Space Telescope to look back far into the past and help cement our current observations and find stars from even earlier times.


BBC News
Science Mag